The Men in the Jungle Read online

  A minute passed, then another. “Looks like we may have to put on a fireworks display to convince the natives,” Vanderling said. He did not seem exactly dismayed at the prospect.

  “This is Moro, Prophet of Pain,” a deep, resonant voice said.

  “Pity to spoil old Bullethead’s jollies,” Sophia said.

  Fraden shot her a quick and definitive shut-up look.

  “This is Moro, Prophet of Pain calling President Fraden of the Belt Free State Government-in-Exile, whatever in Hitler’s name that may be. State your business and state it speedily. My patience is nonexistent.”

  “This is President Fraden. We request political asylum on Sangre under interstellar law.”

  A heavy, oily laugh came over the radio. “There is only one universal law,” the man called Moro said. “The strong kill and the weak die. We want no refugees on Sangre—unless, of course, you care to die in the arena.”

  “That’s not exactly a hospitable way to talk to a man who just may bounce an A-bomb off your head if he gets bugged,” Fraden said. “It’s also no way to talk to a man who’s offering you paradise at bargain-basement prices.”

  “Paradise?”

  “You’ve heard of Omnidrene?” Fraden asked.

  “Omnidrene? What is Omnidrene?”

  “I have it from an inhumanly reliable source that you know all about herogyn,” Fraden said. “Well, multiply the pleasures of herogyn by ten, subtract its addictive properties, and you’ve got Omnidrene. Or I should say, I’ve got Omnidrene. A couple centuries’ supply. I’m selling if you’re buying. Of course, if you’re not interested, I can always go on to—”

  “Wait!” said Moro. “This Omnidrene… Yes, I am very much interested. You will land at the spaceport. I will send my personal car for you and we will discuss this matter face to face.”

  “Fine,” said Fraden. “It’s obvious you’re a man of taste and reason. And being a reasonable man, you must realize that I’m not about to land a shipful of Omnidrene until certain arrangements have been made. I’ll bring some samples in a lifeboat. My associates will remain on the ship. I hate to be crude, but of course if anything should happen to me, there would no longer be any reason for my associates to refrain from bombing your city…”

  “To be sure,” said Moro smoothly. “Believe me, you can trust me. I’ll be expecting you shortly. Out.”

  “Bart, you’re crazy!” Sophia said. “The minute that thug has you in his hot little hand, he’ll force you to order the ship down. He knows you’re bluffing. Even a cretin would know you’re bluffing.”

  “Two points for his side,” Fraden replied. He tapped his tooth. “But five points for ours. I know that he knows. Insurance, remember? Willem, you’ll stay here and monitor what goes on on the microminitransmitter in my tooth. Don’t make a move until I tell you to.”

  “I insist on going with you!” Sophia said, balling her hands into fists. “If you’re going to jump into the frying pan, you’ll need someone with a modicum of intelligence to pick you up when you fall flat on your face. Besides, I’ve no intention of staying cooped up in this tin coffin with old Bullethead while you get to breathe fresh air.”

  Fraden looked at her, with her green eyes blazing, her body tension-stiff, and he realized again how much she really loved him. But love was something neither of them would ever admit to the other.

  “Since you insist,” he said, “I suppose I have no choice. You can come with,”

  Secretly, he admitted that he would’ve found some excuse to take her along anyway. Sophia had more guts and glands than any three men and for reasons he scarcely admitted even to himself, he wanted her by his side—but seen, and not heard!

  “Just one thing,” he said. “I do the talking. All the talking. You’re beautiful, brilliant, passionate, and the love of my life, but a diplomat, Sophia O’Hara, you are not!”

  The air of Sangre was hot and sultry as Bart Fraden led Sophia O’Hara out of the lifeboat’s airlock and onto the concrete, such as it was, of the spaceport landing area. It was obvious that the Sangrans had not been using the spaceport for decades, possibly longer. The concrete landing apron was deeply pitted and cracked. Thick yellowish weeds grew tall In every crack; even a small tree here and there thrust its way up through the ruined concrete. The windows of the control tower were broken, nothing had much paint left on it, and four rusty, ancient ships rotted at one end of the field. A top team of engineers just might be able to put together one ship capable of lifting-off by cannibalizing the others, Fraden thought, 1 was right; they can’t touch our ship.

  “That monstrosity must be our welcoming committee,” Sophia said, crooking a finger toward a large black groundcar that was bouncing across the field toward them on honest-to-god antique rubber-tired wheels instead of modern aircushions. Although the design was ancient, the car’s black paint and brass bright-work gleamed richly in the reddish Sangran sun, and as it screeched to a halt in front of them, Fraden could hear that its turbine was humming smoothly.

  Two tall men in black uniforms and black forage caps got out of the mar section of the car, and Fraden noticed that there were two more of them in the front seat with the driver, a cadaverous hunched-up little man wearing some kind of black livery.

  The uniformed men approached them. They carried obsolete but obviously well-cared-for projectile rifles. Strange-looking weapons dangled from grab-away holsters on their Sam Browne belts—two-foot steel bars ending in a heavy-looking steel ball, the ball covered like a porcupine with scores of tiny sharp blades. Fraden recognized it as a grisly modification of the ancient Terrestrial morningstar.

  But the really disconcerting thing was the soldiers themselves. Both were tall, lean, and very hard-looking. Both had thin, receding brown hair, out-thrust chins, thin noses, and small, sunken, almost colorless blue eyes. Perhaps they were brothers. For some subliminal reason, though, Fraden was sure they were not.

  “You are Bart Fraden,” the lead one said. It was not a question, but a statement in that same peculiarly laconic-yet-tense tone of voice that the Sangran on the radio had had—before he exploded in that insane burst of rage.

  “I’m President Bart Fraden of the Belt—”

  “You will come with us, Bart Fraden,” the soldier said, motioning toward the open door of the groundcar with the barrel of his rifle. Fraden suddenly noticed that the man’s teeth were filed to sharp points.

  “You are ordered to the presence of the Prophet,” the other soldier said, in virtually the same tone of voice. His teeth were filed to points too. “You will move quickly now. You will take your female slave with you.”

  “Slave!” howled Sophia.. “Why you hydrocephalic, Cretaceous, worm-eaten son of a—”

  Fraden winced, kicked her in the ankle, and dragged her bodily toward the groundcar. “Damn it, Soph,” he muttered sotto voce, “take a good look at these characters and keep your big mouth shut!”

  Fraden found himself and Sophia wedged into the back seat of the groundcar between the two soldiers who sat, ramrod-stiff and silent, as the car bounced off the concrete of the field’ and onto the far-better-maintained surface of what seemed like a main avenue.

  The driver, under the watchful eye of the soldiers in the front seat drove like a lunatic, or, Fraden thought, like a man who does not have to worry about rules or accidents. The car was moving very fast, and the soldier to the left of him. partially blocked his view, so what he saw was sketchy and blurred.

  It was also damned unsettling. The low buildings lining the avenue were spotless and beautifully faced with synthmarble, polished metal and wood, but he was sure that he had caught glimpses of fetid hovels behind them and on the cross-streets. There were no sidewalks as such, only general areas at the edges of the street that seemed reserved for what paltry foot traffic there was.

  It seemed as if this area of the city was restricted territory of some kind—the street was nearly deserted. At one intersection, the driver had to swerve to avoid pilin
g into a line of beautiful women. The women were naked, they were all slim redheads, and they were strung together by a chain connecting the steel collars around their necks. At either end of the line was a black-clad soldier, tall, lean, hard-looking, with receding brown hair, outthrust chin, thin nose, small, sunken eyes.

  There were few other pedestrians—here and there a few of the strangely similar-looking soldiers apparently guarding richly-dressed men, a line of scrawny, pathetic-looking men carrying bundles, a group of about twenty fat, naked little boys no older than five or six being herded along by more soldiers, a similar group of pretty little girls…

  “There is something mighty peculiar about this planet,” Sophia muttered, as the car swung off the avenue and onto a long driveway that led up a bare grassy hill toward a large walled compound.

  “I’m glad you noticed,” Fraden muttered, glancing at the soldiers, who seemed totally indifferent to the conversation.

  “I mean there’s a pattern here,” Sophia said. “Sure you expect a strange planet to feel weird, but there’s something about this place that I can’t quite put my finger on…”

  “Well, we’ll soon see,” Fraden said. “Looks like we’ve arrived.”

  The drive led to a heavy steel gate in the concrete wall. Atop the wall at regular intervals were a series of small towers. In each tower was what looked like a heavy-caliber projectile weapon manned by two soldiers. Four armed soldiers stood to either side of the gate. By the time the car reached the gate, it was sliding open, and with hardly a slack in speed, the car passed through the gate and into a large courtyard.

  There were a score of small buildings in the interior of the compound, but the vast, square enclosed area was dominated by a sprawling two-story concrete building with black-veined synthmarble steps, entranceway, and facing, and a large black-painted stadium which loomed behind it.

  The car screeched to a sloppy halt in front of the main building, and Fraden and Sophia were hustled out of the car, up the synthmarble steps, through the heavily guarded arched entranceway, down, a maze of wood-paneled hallways lit by old-fashioned fluorescent, and were finally brought to a halt in front of an ornate gilded door. Two of the tall, hard-looking soldiers stood at attention in front of the door.

  “You will inform the Prophet that Bart Fraden and his slave are outside his office,” one of the two soldiers with Fraden and Sophia said.

  One of the guards spoke into a microphone grid cunningly concealed in tile ornate design of the door: “Bart Fraden has been brought to your presence, Master.”

  “He will come in,” boomed a resonant voice from a similarly concealed speaker.

  A guard opened the door, practically shoved them through it, and closed it behind them.

  Fraden saw that they were in a small, opulently appointed room. The floor was covered with a deep black carpet. Three walls were paneled with some rich dark-burgundy wood, the ceiling was covered with gold leaf. The entire fourth wall was an enormous television screen.

  In the center of the room, a grossly fat man sat behind a large heavy table. On the table was some kind of small control console and a huge golden platter on which a half-eaten roast about the size of a large suckling pig sat in a bed of something that looked like rice. Fraden eyed the roast hopefully—it wasn’t a pig, though it did look strangely familiar, but after two weeks of S-rations, any real meat looked like ambrosia.

  Two guards flanked the fat man, who was dressed in a plain black robe. Although his body was obscenely fat, the man’s face seemed hard, cruel, and intelligent: small, shining dark eyes, a large, strangely thin-lipped mouth, oily black hair, a tiny beak of a nose, almost hidden in great pads of oleaginous flesh.

  “Welcome to the sacred planet Sangre,” the fat man said. His voice was deep, resonant, somehow sinister. “I am Moro, Prophet of Pain. We will talk of this Omnidrene, Fraden. While we talk, some diversion.”

  He did something with the control console, and the huge television screen came to life. The screen showed a view down into a dirt-floored pit. In the pit were two beautiful redhaired women who looked like twins. They were naked except for cruel steel spurs, like those of a fighting cock, strapped to their wrists and ankles. Suddenly, they flew at each other in a terrible rage, ripping flesh with the spurs, biting, gouging, writhing in the dirt, a horrid, tortured knot of bleeding, tearing, murderous humanity. Mercifully, there was no audio.

  Fraden stared at the terrible spectacle in horrified fascination, mesmerized by the hideous, unbelievable carnage. What kind of planet is this? he thought. What kind of man would—?

  “Yes…” Moro said sibilantly. “Not a bad exhibition. Not bad at all…” Then, with an abrupt change of tone: “This entertainment is for my amusement, not yours, Fraden. You will keep your attention on the matter at hand. The matter at hand is this drug, Omnidrene. You have a sample with you?”

  Gratefully, Fraden snapped his eyes and attention away from the horror on the television screen. He reached into a pocket and withdraw a small polybag of white powder. Of all the drugs in his huge cache, Omnidrene was the best one to peddle to the rulers of Sangre, One dose was five hours of paradise, a bliss that no external displeasure—even mortal pain—could penetrate. It was not physically addictive, there were no withdrawal symptoms, but anyone who used it for prolonged periods developed gradually a psychic dependence on the drug, a reluctance to face the vicissitudes of the real world that was so slow, so insidious that the victim never realized that he was an addict. As oligarchy addicted to Omnidrene would eventually simply come to not give a damn.

  “This is the stuff, Moro,” Fraden said, holding out the polybag. “About the most powerful narcotic known to man. One dose is five hours of paradise, it’s non-addictive and there are no physiological side effects. You can snort it, eat it, or inject it—injection is fastest, of course, and if you’d like to try it now, I brought a syringe with me…”

  Moro’s boar-eyes gleamed greedily. He reached out a fat hand for the polybag, hesitated, then pulled it back.

  “Not so fast,” he said, eyeing Fraden narrowly. “You didn’t trust me and I see no reason to trust you. It could, after all, be poison.”

  “What percentage would there be for me in poisoning you?” Fraden said.

  “None,” Moro admitted. “But for all I know your ideas of pleasure may be… exotic. You will take the drug first.”

  Fraden swallowed hard. One shot wouldn’t addict him by a long shot, he knew, but bargaining under the influence of Omnidrene was a good way to go home in a barrel. Occasionally, he thought, honesty really is the best policy.

  He smiled knowingly. “Very clever,” he said, “We’re on your home grounds, and now you expect me to bargain while I’m bombed on Omnidrene. One shot of Omnidrene, and any lousy offer you make will look great to me. No, sir, if you want me to take it, you’ve got to take it at the same time. Then we’ll at least be even.”

  Moro’s swarthy face contorted in a spasm of fury that was gone almost as soon as it came. “You realize I could simply force you to take it,” he said, shrugging. “But then, why bother arguing when there are plenty of useless slaves fit only for the public larder around?” He pressed a button on the control console. “Slave!” he ordered. “At once! An old one!”

  “While we wait,” Moro said, “you might as well eat.” He gestured negligently at the roast animal on the table.

  “Don’t mind if I do,” Fraden said, “Soph?”

  “Whatever it is, at least it isn’t those filthy S-rations I’m dying for real food, Bart Cut me a slice too.”

  Fraden carved two large slices of the roast with the knife beside the platter, handed one to Sophia. As he carved, he saw from the leer on Moro’s face that the fat man had gone back to watching the horror on the television screen. He carefully avoided the sight of the carnage as he lifted the meat to his mouth. It smelled sweet and savory. He took a bite. It had a texture something like lamb, was pleasantly pungent like pork, though a bit sal
ty. Altogether not bad at all, he thought. Too bad Ah Ming isn’t here. He could do some nice things with this.

  He finished the slice and was about to carve another when a guard led in an emaciated, stripped, wizened old man, dressed only in a loincloth. The man’s body was a mass of scars. Fraden lost his appetite, and he noticed that Sophia wasn’t eating any more either.

  “Give him a shot,” Moro ordered.

  Fraden dissolved some of the Omnidrene in a vial of distilled water that he took from a pocket, filled a syringe and injected the drug into a prominent vein in the left arm of the stolidly unprotesting old man.

  Almost instantly, the man’s face softened into a mask of utter bliss. He grinned foolishly, went so limp that the guard had to hold him up. The old man looked around at the guards, at the television screen and beamed and beamed and beamed.

  Moro studied him like an insect. “So you’re happy, eh?” he said.

  The old man collapsed into low liquid giggling for a moment, then finally managed to mutter, “Yes, Master… happy… happy… happy…” He began to giggle again uncontrollably.

  “We shall see,” Moro said. “Beat him!”

  The guard holding the old man pinned his arms behind him. The soldier to the left of Moro stepped forward and began to beat the old man, in the stomach, in the neck, in the face, punch after punch after savage punch. The old man’s lip split, blood dribbled down his chin, ran out of his nose. He giggled and giggled and giggled and kept grinning as the soldier beat him to a bloody pulp.

  Moro smiled, obviously quite satisfied with things. “Enough!” he finally said. “Remove him!”

  The guard dragged the blood-spattered, broken old man from the room. Even as he was dragged, the pitiful hulk kept giggling, continued to grin as he choked on his own blood.

  “So,” said Moro, “a pleasure-drug indeed. Seize him!”

  One of the soldiers grabbed Fraden, who did not straggle. He had been expecting this.

  “The slave too!”

  The other soldier pinned Sophia’s arms behind her. “Slave?” she screamed. “You leprous mound of hairy whale-blubber! You mother—”